Online – Throughout the implementation, the European Union funded SECCA has assessed the capacities of the Central Asia (CA) countries to develop national energy sector models and developed capacity-building plans. The first steps towards the implementation of these plans include (i) the set-up a Regional Group on energy modelling; and (ii) the delivery of three regional trainings to transfer the basic concepts and the theoretical and practical approaches, related to analysing and modelling complex energy systems at the national and regional level.

On 10 September 2024, the SECCA project experts and the members of this Regional Group – 2 young professionals from each beneficiary country – convened online for a preliminary meeting. The meeting aimed to introduce the general scope and structure of the trainings and initialise the process. It proceeded the First regional training, which is scheduled to take place on 24-27 September 2024 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

By convening this Regional Group, the SECCA project aims to initiate country “modelling units” and create a long-term bridge between the project activities and local decision makers and improve local systems thinking and knowledge (data) based decision making in the energy and climate sectors.

Following the completion of three regional trainings, the members of the Regional Group will have enhanced their knowledge and skills in the “fundamentals” of energy and climate strategic planning and modelling analyses, selection/collection/elaboration/utilisation of energy (and non-energy) statistics and data for quantitative analyses in the field of energy and climate.